President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony
broadcast on state TV that building the Qaher-313, or Dominant-313,
shows Iran's will to "conquer scientific peaks."

The Qaher is one of several aircraft designs rolled
out by the Iranian military since 2007. Tehran has repeatedly claimed to
have developed advanced military technologies in recent years but its
claims cannot be independently verified because the country does not
release technical details of its arsenals.

The Islamic republic launched a self-sufficiency
military program in the 1980s to compensate for a Western weapons
embargo that banned export of military technology and equipment to Iran.
Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel
carriers, missiles, torpedoes, drones and fighter planes.

"Qaher-313 is a fully indigenous aircraft designed
and built by our aerospace experts. This is a radar-evading plane that
can fly at low altitude, carry weapons, engage enemy aircrafts and land
at short airstrips," Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said.

Some reports however suggest Iran's program relies on
equipment supplied by major international defense contractors --
incorporating parts made abroad or reverse-engineered technologies into
its domestic designs.

Still photos of the Qaher released by the official
IRNA news agency and pictures on state TV show a single-seat jet. They
described it as a fighter-bomber that can combat both other aircraft and
ground targets.

Iran's English-language state Press TV said Qaher was
similar to the American-made F/A-18, an advanced fighter capable of
dogfighting as well as penetrating enemy air defenses to strike ground
targets.

Physically, Press TV said, the aircraft resembles the
F-5E/F Tiger II, a much older American design that Iran has had in its
arsenal since it was supplied to the U.S.-allied regime of the Shah
before Iran's 1979 revolution.

"Development depends on our will. If we don't have a
will, no one can take us there," Ahmadinejad told the inauguration
ceremony in Tehran. "Once we imported cars and assembled them here. Now,
we are at a point where we can design, build and get planes in the
air."

Iran unveiled what it said was its first domestically
manufactured fighter jet, called Azarakhsh or Lightning, in 2007. In
the same year, it claimed that Azarakhsh had reached industrial
production stage.

Saeqeh, or Thunder, was a follow-up aircraft derived
from Azarakhsh. Iran unveiled its first squadron of Saeqeh fighter
bombers in an air show in September 2010.